Much to no one’s surprise, Senate Dems announced yesterday that they will filibuster Bill Pryor’s nomination to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. A floor vote on Pryor’s nomination could come as early as Thursday.
Baseless and offensive Republican accusations of anti-Catholic bigotry, even against Catholic senators, apparently had the opposite of the intended effect. Instead of scaring Dems into submission, the attempted smears have emboldened Dems to unite in opposition to Pryor. Good for them.
It’s nice to see Dems fighting mad for a change. You’ll recall, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the Judiciary Committee’s chairman, got things started by asking Pryor what his religious affiliation is while the nominee was giving testimony.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), a Catholic lawmaker and staunch opponent of Pryor’s nomination, said yesterday that he and Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) would propose a rule for the future that “a witness or nominee cannot ever be asked about their religion.”
This only makes sense. The fact that Hatch asked Pryor to state his religion during an open hearing was totally inappropriate. If you were in a job interview, it would be illegal for the employer to ask your religious affiliation. Hatch was pulling a cheap stunt so he could falsely accuse his colleagues of bigotry later on. I hope Durbin and Leahy are successful in making it impossible to ask the same question of future nominees.
In the meantime, some Republican senators won’t give up. Just yesterday, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), a Methodist and close Pryor ally, reiterated his twisted belief that Democrats’ opposition was based somehow on Pryor’s religion.
“Can a person with orthodox Catholic views on abortion be affirmed as a federal judge? [Pryor’s nomination] raises that question,” Sessions said.
No it doesn’t. The charge is false and insulting on its face, but it’s particularly disturbing when you consider the source.
If there’s one senator who should be reluctant to accuse anyone of bigotry, it’s Jeff Sessions. After all, when you consider Sessions’ record on race and civil rights, you begin to think he’s just as bad as notorious Senate racists like Trent Lott and Jesse Helms.
Not to belabor this point, but Sessions’ record is worth exploration, especially in light of his accusations against others. Sessions got his start in Alabama politics as a U.S. Attorney. His most notable effort was prosecuting three civil rights workers, including a former aide to Martin Luther King Jr., on trumped up charges of voter fraud.
Also during his illustrious career in Alabama, Sessions had called the NAACP “un-American” because they, among others, “forced civil rights down the throats of people.” One former Justice Department official who worked with Sessions recalled an instance when he called a white attorney a “disgrace to his race” for litigating voting rights cases on behalf of African Americans. Sessions later acknowledged having made the remark, but said he was kidding. Yeah, that’s a hilarious comment.
That’s not all. Thomas Figures, a former assistant U.S. Attorney in Alabama and an African American, later explained that during a 1981 murder investigation involving the Ku Klux Klan, Sessions was heard by several colleagues commenting that he “used to think they [the Klan] were OK” until he found out some of them were “pot smokers.” Sessions once again said that he had made the remark, but once again claimed to have been kidding. Figures also remembered having heard Sessions call him “boy,” and once warned him to “be careful what you say to white folks.”
Now Sessions is a U.S. Senator, which in and of itself is a tragedy, accusing Catholics of anti-Catholic bigotry. You’ll forgive me if I find that a tad ironic.